Coherence and Cohesion in English Discourse

particular type of unit that we have chosen. Focusing on this unit, we 
identify a number of problems which are associated with the definition and 
exemplification of units of this type, and give examples of the awkward 
cases found in actual data.
(AL1/ Introduction)
The occurrences of the proximal demonstrative determiners 
this
and 
these
with shell nouns create local cohesive links (11) while making relevant discourse 
elements the focus of attention. It is important to stress that in these cases the 
cohesive link is created both by the demonstrative determiner and the context-
dependent shell noun, which has the potential to evaluate the referent by 
qualifying it as, for instance, a ‘problem’, ‘advantage’ or ‘difficulty’.
(11)
In practical terms, the procedures mentioned above – picking up on 
individual points in drafts, or using the grid of sources for propositions 
as a way of examining more extensive stretches of text – are simple but 

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effective in prompting investigation of the voices in the text. It should 
also be borne in mind that there is no reason why these issues
 cannot be 
raised with students whose command of writing and/or English is not as 
advanced: they would fit in very well, for example, with the genre-based 
approach to the teaching of writing in schools pioneered by Martin (e.g. 
1985) and his colleagues. 
(AL4/ Discussion)
As the results of the quantitative analysis (Table 1-4) show, the majority of distal 
demonstratives used in the 
Applied Linguistics
corpus (77.4% of the occurrences 
of 
that
and 83.9% of the occurrences of 
those
) have a pronominal function. In 
the majority of cases the pronouns 
those
and 
that
are used cataphorically with a 
post-modifying clause or prepositional phrase which makes their reference more 
precise (13). These uses of demonstrative pronouns create cohesive links at the 
intrasentential level and thus pertain to the local discourse level. 
(12)
Though this suggests that proficiency is not necessarily reflected in 
surface complexity of language, it is still valid to suppose that more 
proficient speakers are those who are able to keep track of where they 
are
, syntactically, as they incorporate fully or partially fixed sequences 
with language freshly minted for the occasion. 
(AL1/ Introduction)
Similarly to proximal demonstratives, the rather infrequent uses of 
that
and 
those
as determiners co-occur with deictic and shell nouns and create local 
cohesive relations. As (13) shows, however, while 
this
and 
these
are used to refer 
to the current study and the phenomena and approaches which are central to it, 
the distal demonstrative determiner 
that
refers to a previous study cited in the 
article.
(13)
We extended 
this research approach
 in the Longman Grammar of Spoken 
and Written English (Biber et al. 1999, ch. 13; see also Biber and Conrad 
1999), referring to these recurrent sequences of words as ‘lexical bundles’ 
(see section 2 below). That study used corpus-based research methods 
to compare the most common multi-word units in spoken and written 
registers. 
(AL7/ Method)
When used with shell nouns, distal demonstratives can show disagreement 
with the findings, views and positions to which they refer (14).
(14)
The problem […] appears when researchers compare speakers from 
different socio-economic classes and (in some contexts) ethnic groups. 
If this variation arose from innate differences in verbal ability, then 

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presumably it would be logical to conclude that such differences exist not 
only between men and women, but also between middle-class and working-
class speakers or white and non-white ones. It is not only linguists who 
would find that conclusion unpalatable. Most new biologists emphasize 
that they do not share the preoccupations with race and class which 
brought some of their predecessors into disrepute. 
(AL12/ Discussion)
This analysis of cohesive relations established by demonstratives indicates 
that both distal and proximal demonstrative pronouns establish local cohesive 
links. When used as determiners, distal demonstratives partake in the construal 
of local cohesion, while the proximal demonstrative 
this
can create cohesive 
links both at the local and global discourse level.